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The Beat(ing) Goes On.

For some strange reason my mind works while I sleep and often, I will awake with an answer to a confounding problem from the day before. That didn't happen last night!

Instead, I did think of a new mantra to describe the situation.


Things simply do not aright themselves through spontaneous correction.

Yesterday was both a Good Day and Bad Day at the bench with the MHST project. First the Good News. I was able to get a HIGH on GP2 when you hit the PTT button on the QUISK panel. It all boiled down to adding a #define statement in the Arduino IDE that cites the Pin title and GPIO Pin Number. 

That worked but for as fast as the Pi Pico is (133 MHz) there is a noticeable delay (with no internal delay statements in the code) from button engagement until there is power on the pin and the same is true once the button is released. Thus, not like unkeying the Microphone and you are in receive. More opportunities for going down the rabbit hole.




But then the two Bad News Stories. I noticed a weird display on the spectrum. Two humps right in the middle. A quick check and there were no LO signals, and the Pi Pico board suddenly became the IRF510 test where you place your thumb on the heatsink and you get physically burned. 

Smoked is an appropriate term, but also inexplicable as I had not touched or tweaked anything. Recycling and restarting things did nothing and so my new mantra arose from the smoke.

I had a NIB Pi Pico and got that loaded with code and installed. Back working so that was good. I left the radio on and went in the house to check on my dinner that was simmering on the stove and came back out to the lab to find the screen saver on but now an issue with the radio is not receiving. The 1st check and the Pi Pico was not hot to the touch...

I turned things off and called it a day. Dinner was quite good and hopefully my new mantra is wrong, and the radio will once again work today.

Overnight I thought about any changes I had made but those involved software and not anything on the hardware side. I will look for any wires that might have been shorted or not connected. But the fact remains I smoked a Pi Pico and there is an anomaly afoot. In looking at the prior posts I am always fixing a problem with the Pi Pico -- is there a much larger issue that my simple design may need some attention.

If you know then you can make it go.

Listening to some 7/5 calls in a QSO on 40M, I got a run down on how several (YL) democratic representatives will be arrested and at least one will be deported -- simply a report of what they heard on Fox News. They actually believe what they were saying. News headlines from this morning are silent on any such actions. Maybe yet today. Stupidity and a ham -- that is a toxic combination!

73's
Pete N6QW




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